Annie

Job, housing and commercial markets are pretty grown-up things to worry about, yet adults aren’t the only ones who suffer during a recession. Children, too, feel the strain.

Pandemonium Productions, Santa Fe’s youth musical-theater company, presents Annie, the award-winning 1977 Broadway musical about a group of children who live in an orphanage in New York City. Antagonized by the evil (or, at any rate, mean) orphanage director, Ms. Hannigan, rambunctious 11-year-old Annie sets out to find her long-estranged parents. On the way, she befriends a dog, a billionaire and even the president of the United States.

It’s impossible to ignore the comparisons between the subject matter of this Great Depression-era play and today’s current economic conundrum. Certainly, everyone in the story celebrates Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, but it’s Annie’s determination and positive outlook that get her through—at least in this play.